1. Field
An air conditioner and a method for controlling an conditioner are disclosed herein.
2. Background
Air conditioners are electronic appliances that maintain air in a predetermined space in a most suitable state according to uses and purposes. Generally, an air conditioner includes a compressor, a refrigerant, an expansion device, and an evaporator, and drives a refrigeration cycle in which compression, condensation, expansion, and evaporation processes of a refrigerant are performed to cool or heat the predetermined space.
The predetermined space may be various spaces depending on a place in which the air conditioner is to be used. For example, when the air conditioner is located in a home or office, the predetermined space may be an indoor space of a house or building.
When the air conditioner performs an air cooling operation, an outdoor heat exchanger included in an outdoor unit or device functions as a refrigerant and an indoor heat exchanger included in an indoor unit or device functions as an evaporator. On the other hand, when the air conditioner performs an air heating operation, the indoor heat exchanger functions as a refrigerant and the outdoor heat exchanger functions as an evaporator.
The air conditioner needs to operate according to appropriate operation methods so as to make a user feel comfortable, for example, not too hot or too cold. In the related art, there has been suggested technology to identify a motion content of an occupant and control an operation of the air conditioner. One related art document is Korean Publication No. 10-2011-0097589, published on Aug. 31, 2011 and entitled “Image Processing Apparatus, Image Processing Method, and Air Conditioner Control Apparatus”, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
The above related art document discloses technology in which an image processing apparatus is provided, differential image information according to a motion of an occupant is accumulated and a motion content of the occupant is identified based on the accumulated differential image information. However, according to the related art, there is a problem in that it is difficult to apply the technology to a ceiling type indoor unit or device as front image information of the indoor unit is acquired at a height at which the user is located.
Further, in the indoor space in which the air conditioner is mounted, for example, in a living space or an office space, there is also an obstacle, such as a wall, defining a space or furniture in addition to the user. When air flow discharged from the air conditioner is blocked by the obstacle, there occurs a problem that the discharged air flow is hardly delivered to the user. The above related art has limitations in solving this problem.
Furthermore, an indoor unit or device of the air conditioner may be configured as a ceiling type indoor unit or device mounted in the ceiling. Moreover, heights of the ceiling are different depending on a size of the indoor space, and therefore, mounting heights of the ceiling type indoor unit are different. When the mounting height is too high, the discharged air flow is not appropriately delivered to the user and when the mounting height is too low, the discharged air flow is directly delivered to the user, causing the user to feel uncomfortable. The above-described related art has limitations in solving this problem.